鹤果薹草 he guo tai cao

Rhizome oblique, woody. Culms tufted, 50-80 cm tall, obtusely trigonous, smooth, scabrous above, clothed at base with brown sheaths eventually disintegrating into parallel fibers. Leaves shorter than culm, blades linear, 2-3 mm wide, flat, margins scabrous, apex long acuminate. Involucral bracts reduced to shortly bladed, shorter than inflorescence, sheathing 1-2 cm. Spikes 4-9; upper 3-5(-7) male, approximate, cylindric, 1-2 cm, sessile; remaining spikes female, rarely with male flowers at apex, cylindric or oblong, 2-3.2 × ca. 0.4 cm, densely many flowered, with slender, scabrous peduncles 1.5-5 cm. Female glumes castaneous, elliptic-lanceolate or broadly ovate, 5-5.5 mm, scabrous on 2 lateral veins of costa, margins broadly white hyaline. Utricles stramineous below, purple-brown above, longer and broader than glume, elliptic-lanceolate, compressed trigonous, 7-8 mm, papery, densely papillose, conspicuously veined abaxially, faintly veined adaxially, base contracted, apex gradually narrowed into a beak, orifice obliquely truncate, white hyaline. Nutlets brown, loosely enveloped, oblong, trigonous, ca. 2.5 mm, base with short stipe 0.5-0.8 mm; style long and erect, hispidulous, base not thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep.

● Rock crevices, sunny slopes, roadsides; 1500-3000 m. Hebei, Nei Mongol, Shaanxi.